Berlin hospital suspends circumcisions after court ruling

Berlin's Jewish Hospital will suspend circumcisions after a German court ruled this week that performing the procedure on religious grounds is unlawful, a hospital spokesman said Friday.

"We are suspending circumcisions until the legal position is clear," Gerhard Nerlich told AFP, citing head of internal medicine Kirstof Graf.

The hospital performs 300 circumcisions a year, a third of which are for religious reasons and the remainder due to medical concerns.

"We regularly performed circumcisions before this ruling but we don't have the legal freedom to do so any more," said Nerlich, adding that two procedures had already been cancelled.

Earlier on Friday German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle weighed in the debate, saying the country protected religious freedom and traditions.

"The ruling on circumcision has provoked annoyance internationally," Westerwelle wrote on his official Twitter account.

"We have to be clear: religious traditions are protected in Germany," he added.

A regional court in Cologne ruled that circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm in a judgement which triggered accusations that parents' rights were being trampled on.

The case, which could set a precedent, was brought against a doctor in Cologne who had circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy on his parents' wishes.

A few days after the operation, his parents took him to hospital as he was bleeding heavily and prosecutors charged the doctor.

The court later acquitted the doctor himself of causing harm.

Muslim and Jewish groups along with top Christian clerics have voiced opposition to the ruling.

Westerwelle was also quoted in the Bild's online edition on Thursday saying that Germany "is an open and tolerant country where religious freedom is well established and where religious traditions like circumcision as an expression of religious diversity are protected."

Herr Westerwelle forgot to finish his sentence: We have to be clear: religious traditions are protected in Germany, ...even at the expense of children's rights.

Circumcision of unconsenting children without medical need carries immediate and long-term adverse physical, sexual and psychological consequences, as documented by the Global Survey of Circumcision Harm [www.circumcisionharm.org].

It's disappointing that Westerwelle, an openly gay man and lawyer, fails to grasp the importance of the child's right to bodily integrity and genital autonomy.

The court ruled correctly that when there's a conflict between a parent's religious beliefs/customs and the bodily integrity of the child upon whom a harmful custom is imposed, the child should be given the benefit of legal protection.

We regularly performed circumcisions before this ruling but we don't have the legal freedom to do so any more

What a bunch of jokers! They are trying to change the debate—is it any wonder that a "Jewish" hospital is the one making the noise?

This is an attempt to fool the general public into thinking the ruling is broader than it actually is; these jokers are trying to make people feel that the government has overstepped its limits to the detriment of a field as important as medicine, such that the poor doctors can no longer adequately administer their "healing" arts.

What hogwash!

This hospital performs 300 circumcisions per year, of which only 100 would be affected by the ruling—namely, the 100 that are NOT in any way medical in nature. The other 200 [supposedly] medically necessary circumcisions are unhindered.

I don't care under what legal premise male circumcision is being condemned by the Berlin court, there is no rational justification for disregarding the medical, social and aesthetic benefits of this procedure. Making allusions to bodily integrity is of no defence in this argument, let me pose this question; would you allow parasitic or conjoined twins to suffer even if surgery can fix it just because they were born that way? what sense does their premise of bodily integrity make here?

I support the court. Religious freedom must include the right to be free FROM religion, else it is a licence for endless abuse in the name of some supernatural entity or another. A child has no religion, and forcibly mutilating that child in the name of your religion is simply wrong.

@ daniel, are you implying that a foreskin is a mutation of some sort? every male mammal has one, it has a function, and if you don't want yours then you are free as an adult to chop it off. Why should infants who are not able to receive proper pain medication undergo an unneccesary procedure because they might not want a piece of their anatomy later on? Maybe i would rather not have ears, should my parents be allowed to chop them off at birth? or more to the point, maybe i don't like my prepuce (clitoral hood) maybe i wish my parents would have spared me the trouble of pondering that question. should all girls be subject to fgm simply because some may wish it done?

You all said great things. Why are religious rights of parents more protected than the body rights of children, and the religious rights of children? Why are parents held so in such esteem? I think we must go back to the trauma and abuse psychologist Alice Miller. Anyway, these protesters are making such a fuss and trying to confuse the issue. I was cut as a baby and I restent it. I see it as both aggression and theft. I feel I'll never get to have normal sex, and from that I also think it follows, I'll never get to have a normal relationship. I don't want to see the German government bow down to the Jews and kiss their asses on this because of 'you know what'. You know, that shouldn't grant the jews a free pass for everything they want. I think anyone who cuts a baby for non medical reasons is either evil or negligent, and lets not forget, Abraham himself had himself cut as an ADULT and also that cut was minor in comparison to common modern version which dates from the 2nd century AD/CE